ReBuild 17: Innovating in Waste Management for Sustainable Building in the Azores (2024)
"The ReBuild 17 project, funded by EEA Grants, aims to promote the circular economy in the construction sector. In Portugal, the construction sector is responsible for about half of the raw material extracted from the environment, energy consumption and waste generated. Thus, it is intended to make a valid contribution to the transition from the current linear model to a sustainable circular economy. The main objective of the project is to create a digital platform for the recovery of construction and demolition waste (RCD), in which all stakeholders associated with the sector must participate. The platform also includes an area for construction and demolition waste prevention and management plans (PPGRCD), where the plan can be monitored from its creation (project phase), through implementation (construction phase), to completion. Taking into account the importance of the information included in the PPGRCD..."
Construction and demolition waste landfills: A source of resources (2024)
"From the seventies of the last century, with the significant increase in reinforced concrete construction, the deposition of materials and products resulting from construction, in particular demolition, was carried out in large quantities in fields, some previously exploited as quarries or gravel pits and on the coast. These actions were intended to mask the resulting scars of exploitation processes and remodel the landscape, but also to fill in valleys or land depressions, without great productive potential. On the zores islands, there are also several landfills resulting from the deposition of waste from the demolition of buildings damaged by earthquakes and materials resulting from landslides, such as debris flows and rockfall. These deposits mainly contain masonry materials, stone and cement blocks, bricks, clay and fiber cement tiles, pieces of wood mixed with soil, rocks, and trees, in addition to bituminous mixtures from the repavement of streets. Many of these materials could potentially be reusable in a more circular economy, as opposed to the continuous exploitation of resources, accumulation of waste, and rising production costs."
LREC + Sustainable - Energy Efficiency - Case Study (2024)
"The Regional Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LREC), as a public building of the Autonomous Region of the
Azores (RAA), proposed to develop internally a project called "LREC + Sustainable", whose main objective is to make the LREC building more sustainable through the implementation of improvement measures in various areas, namely in energy, water and waste, in order to reduce the consumption of natural resources, also reduce losses and waste from the use of these resources, reduce CO2 emissions and resort to renewable energies. The energy efficiency component was developed as part of an application made to the Operational Programme - OP Açores 2020. The LREC + Sustainable project includes four improvement measures that resulted from the energy audit, in which the initial characterization/base of the LREC building was carried out. The improvement measures were as follows: assembling flow reducers on taps and a digital programmer clock for water heaters, replacing existing lighting with LEDs, assembling a monitoring and energy consumption management system (SMGE) and a photovoltaic system for self-consumption (UPAC). After implementing the measures provided for under the project, the final characterisation of the building was carried out through a new energy audit, and it was found that the LREC building improved in four energy class levels, from C to A+."